musical culture from South Asia and the Diaspora

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Sunday Sounds: Surinam’s bhaitak gana the ancestor of Chutney

In 1667, in what appeared at the time to be a killer deal, the Dutch East India Company traded an island in north America for a lush chunk of jungle in South America to the British government. The Dutch were happy to get rid of Manhattan and relieve the English (their Atlantic imperialist rivals) of their tropical real estate just north of Brazil. Sadly, as so often happens, what seems like a slam dunk today, turns out (to really mix the metaphorical brew) a white elephant tomorrow. I mean who could have predicted that slavery would ever be outlawed? And that the good times on the sugar plantations of Surinam would come to a grinding halt? (article)